18 : CHRISTMAS IN AMERICA.

There was a story of the dark times of the Indian war that
my grandmother used to relate on the night that we burned our
Christmas candle,—a story that my grandmother told of her
grandmother, and of the fortunate and timely explosion of
one of that old lady’s Christmas candles in the last days of
Philip’s War, when the sight of a hostile Indian was a terror to
the unarmed colonist. ,

“It was well that candle went off when it did,’ my grand-
mother used to say. “If it had not, I don’t know where any of
us would have been to-night ; not here, telling riddles and roast-
ing apples and enjoying ourselves, I imagine. I have dipped a
powder-candle every season since, not that I believe much in >
keeping holidays, but because a powder-candle once saved the
family.”

She continued her story: — :

‘My grandmother was a widow in her last years. She had
two children, Benjamin and my mother, Mary. She lived at
Pocasset, and the old house overlooked Mount Hope and the
bay. Pocasset was an Indian province then, and its Indian
queen was named Wetamoo.

“My grandmother was a great-hearted woman. She had a
fair amount of property, and she used it for the good of her
less fortunate neighbors. She had kept several poor old people
from the town-house by giving them a home with her. Her
good deeds caused her to be respected by every one.

“The Indians were friendly to her. She had done them so
many acts of kindness that even the haughty Wetamoo had
once called to see her and made her a present. The old house
was néar an easy landing-place for boats on the bay; and the
Indians, as they came from their canoes, passed through the
yard, and often stopped to drink from the well. It was no